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Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr On Superman

Earlier today the news came in that Geoff Johns would be taking over Superman from Scott Lobdell sometime this summer. With Geoff John’s Forever Evil event ending in April and Jeff Lemire taking over Justice League of America (United), rumors started circulating that Johns would begin working on a new project. Now that it’s been revealed to be Superman, Johns is planning on taking Superman in a bold new direction. In an interview with IGN today, he had this to say about what to expect from his upcoming take on Superman:

“For me, as far as the story goes, my tagline for the story is “Putting the Man of Tomorrow back in the Man of Tomorrow.” It’s really looking at Superman and getting back to the core values and attributes and strengths of Superman. Really, the Man of Tomorrow is the theme, for me, that we’re going to tackle in this first storyline…We really are exploring the unknown. If there’s a theme for this entire project, it’s entering the unknown.”

The other big piece of news to come out of this is that John Romita Jr would be the new artist on the book. Romita Jr has worked almost exclusively with Marvel over the years, only deviating to do creator owned work like Kick-Ass. So how did DC Comics get a hold of him? In the same interview, he explained:

“My contract at Marvel was nearing its end. By hook or by crook, I had been working on creator-owned for quite awhile with Mark Millar on Kick-Ass, and I developed a whole bunch of creator-owned properties myself. So before I actually decided to do this, I had been thinking about going freelance to work on my own creator-owned properties, and that was the ultimate decision-maker for me, was that I wanted to go freelance so I could do my own work…The biggest thing for me was I’ve always said I want to do something I haven’t done before, whether it’s draw something in a way that I haven’t drawn before, tell a story in a way I haven’t done before — and this is the ultimate in something I haven’t done before.”

When Johns got the news that he was working with Romita Jr, he talked about studying up on his previous work and what that would mean for the collaborative process once they get going on the book:

When you write for any artist, you want to make sure that you know their work. You have to tailor your style differently to everybody, and John’s work is so beautiful and so epic and yet personal…I think working with somebody like John, who has ideas of his own, we’d go back and forth and amplify each other. That’s really where I get my excitement about working on a project, is when I speak with an artist and we actually become real, creative collaborators. It’s not about handing a script over and then having the pages drawn. It’s gotta be about that collaboration. It’s such an honor to work with John, because I’ve followed his work of course for years. So it’s really a dream come true, and it’s great to be back on Superman.

Geoff Johns and John Romita Jr’s Superman will debut this summer.

What are your thoughts on this pairing taking over Superman? Are you looking forward to reading it? Leave your thoughts in the comments below.